The difference between her and me might be figured by that between the stately ship cruising safe on smooth seas, with its full complement of crew, a captain gay and brave, and venturous and provident, and the lifeboat, which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an old, dark boathouse, only putting to sea when the billows run high in rough weather, when cloud encounters water, when danger and death divide between them the rule of the great deep. No, the Louisa Bretton never was out of harbour on such a night, and in such a scene—her crew could not conceive it; so the half-drowned lifeboat-man keeps his own counsel, and spins no yarns.

She left me, and I lay in bed content. It was good of Graham to remember me before he went out.

My day was lonely, but the prospect of coming evening abridged and cheered it. Then, too, I felt weak, and rest seemed welcome; and after the morning hours were gone by—those hours which always bring, even to the necessarily unoccupied, a sense of business to be done, of tasks waiting fulfilment, a vague impression of obligation to be employed—when this stirring time was past, and the silent descent of afternoon hushed housemaid steps on the stairs and in the chambers, I then passed into a dreamy mood, not unpleasant.

My calm little room seemed somehow like a cave in the sea. There was no colour about it, except that white and pale green suggestive of foam and deep water; the blanched cornice was adorned with shell- shaped ornaments, and there were white mouldings like dolphins in the ceiling-angles. Even that one touch of colour visible in the red satin pin-cushion bore affinity to coral; even that dark, shining glass might have mirrored a mermaid. When I closed my eyes, I heard a gale, subsiding at last, bearing upon the house-front like a settling swell upon a rock-base. I heard it drawn and withdrawn far, far off, like a tide retiring from a shore of the upper world—a world so high above that the rush of its largest waves, the dash of its fiercest breakers, could sound down in this submarine home only like murmurs and a lullaby.

Amidst these dreams came evening, and then Martha brought a light. With her aid I was quickly dressed, and stronger now than in the morning, I made my way down to the blue saloon unassisted.

Dr. John, it appears, had concluded his round of professional calls earlier than usual. His form was the first object that met my eyes as I entered the parlour. He stood in that window recess opposite the door, reading the close type of a newspaper by such dull light as closing day yet gave. The fire shone clear, but the lamp stood on the table unlit, and tea was not yet brought up.

As to Mrs. Bretton, my active godmother—who, I afterwards found, had been out in the open air all day—lay half reclined in her deep-cushioned chair, actually lost in a nap. Her son, seeing me, came forward. I noticed that he trod carefully, not to wake the sleeper; he also spoke low. His mellow voice never had any sharpness in it. Modulated as at present, it was calculated rather to soothe than startle slumber.

“This is a quiet little château,” he observed, after inviting me to sit near the casement “I don’t know whether you may have noticed it in your walks—though, indeed, from the chaussée it is not visible. Just a mile beyond the Porte de Crécy you turn down a lane, which soon becomes an avenue, and that leads you on, through meadow and shade, to the very door of this house. It is not a modern place, but built somewhat in the old style of the Basse-Ville. It is rather a manoir than a château. They call it ‘La Terrasse,’ because its front rises from a broad turfed walk, whence steps lead down a grassy slope to the avenue. See yonder! The moon rises. She looks well through the tree-boles.”

Where, indeed, does the moon not look well? What is the scene, confined or expansive, which her orb does not hallow? Rosy or fiery, she mounted now above a not distant bank. Even while we watched her flushed ascent she cleared to gold, and in very brief space floated up stainless into a now calm sky. Did moonlight soften or sadden Dr. Bretton? Did it touch him with romance? I think it did. Albeit of no sighing mood, he sighed in watching it—sighed to himself quietly. No need to ponder the cause or the course of that sigh. I knew it was wakened by beauty; I knew it pursued Ginevra. Knowing this,